Featured Picture: Courtesy of Salomon
My jaw dropped on the sight of them… Barely jet-lagged from arriving in Annecy, France, the evening earlier than, I used to be ushered into a gathering room with a big, U-shaped desk dominating the area. On the wall to my left sat the 2026 Salomon QST Assortment. It was instantly obvious that this was a brand new route for Salomon. Every mannequin was adorned with a vibrant topsheet— a transparent departure from the QST aesthetic of the previous 4 years. The skis sport a youthful look with seven distinctive graphics within the assortment, all that includes pastel colours and pixelated accent strains, offering a dynamic look, akin to ski tracks via powder or the define of a storm cycle. After dealing with a couple of of them, it turned rapidly obvious that the brand new builds have been utterly completely different from the final era of QST. The brand new Clean, QST 100 and QST 94 had the extra notable variations from their earlier fashions. The Clean felt stiffer when flexed and featured a bigger flip radius, whereas the QST 100 gained two millimeters of waist width from the QST 98 and featured a extra progressive form. The QST 94 felt stiffer as properly and had this squared-off, flatish tail. These updates to Salomon’s flagship freeride line have been born in Salomon’s Annecy Design Heart, one hour south of Geneva, Switzerland.
Salomon’s Annecy Design Heart
The Annecy Design Heart, or ADC for brief, is the place each Salomon product from working and way of life, to alpine and nordic gear, is conceptualized, designed and constructed. This distinctive headquarters permits product designers, engineers, builders, testers, advertising and marketing personnel, product managers and executives to work underneath the identical roof.
This atmosphere fosters collaboration via the assorted steps of designing a product. Whether or not it’s a brand new pair of skis or path trainers, the designers and engineers can rapidly get hands-on suggestions from the fabricators through the Analysis & Improvement course of. It was additionally obvious that the ADC’s environment fosters a robust group camaraderie, as we watched the whole employees congregate for lunch on the on-campus cafeteria, and whereas we touring the ability, have been fortunate sufficient to catch Salomon’s worker choir sing their hearts out in entrance of the ADC espresso store—a seemingly common incidence.
As we made our method across the maze of workplaces, product testing rooms and fabrication areas, I might see and really feel the eagerness that these individuals had for his or her work and, extra importantly, the belief that they had of their teammates’ ability and competency to execute their piece of the puzzle.
Testing The 2026 QST Assortment
Early the subsequent morning, the crew loaded up the van and headed over the border to the small Swiss ski space of Arolla. Located on the well-known Haute Route, this charming ski hill is surrounded by beautiful mountains and bordered by a glacier that regarded as if prefer it was feeding deep blue ice onto one of many resort’s groomers. Arolla—and a three-story chalet—could be the home-away-from-home for Salomon’s Mountain Collective—an annual congregation of Salomon’s alpine staff, athletes and media to check skis, focus on the business and break down the brand new imaginative and prescient of the QST Assortment.
The brand new assortment options 4 distinctive fashions, three of which are available two unisex colorways and the Clean in a single distinctive topsheet. The QST 94 and 100 are utterly new waist widths for Salomon’s QST Assortment, with the previous changing the QST 92 and the latter changing the QST 98. Towards the broader finish of the gathering Salomon has redesigned the QST 106 and the QST Clean.
It was early season and comparatively low tide at Arolla which meant we’d be testing totally on groomed runs. Over the course of the journey I used to be in a position to discover flip shapes and begin getting a really feel for the adjustments made to the QST Clean and QST 100.
Salomon QST 100
The QST 100 delivers a novel really feel. It feels very malleable and playful while you choose up velocity, whereas retaining a really damp and steady really feel which is because of it newly designed core, two further millimeters of waist width and redesigned form. This ski is a marked departure from the QST 98. The QST 98 has all the time been enjoyable in timber and bumps, because of its exaggerated rocker and camber profile, however generally had an inclination to scrub out on steeper pitches and on agency snow. The QST 100 maintains the final thought of the QST 98 as essentially the most progressive and versatile ski within the QST assortment however has extra of an urge for food to be skied aggressively and can absolutely cater to the extra assertive freerider.
Salomon QST Clean
As I settled into my first laps on the brand new Clean, I acquired a a lot burlier really feel from the tail than I did on the earlier iteration. Salomon additionally elevated the flip radius barely, which provides the ski a much less twitchy really feel. Regardless of its sturdy nature, the Clean was comparatively simple to control if you happen to actually leaned into it—throwing the tails round to clean velocity or whereas spinning into switches. Whereas not notably smooth – it’s really fairly stout – you possibly can rapidly snap the ski sideways and alter the momentum of your flip because of its rocker profile and tip and tail form.
Throughout our annual ski take a look at kicking off this February, we’ll dive into the remaining two skis within the assortment in addition to proceed to scrupulously take a look at the QST 100 and QST Clean. These skis appear to mark a brand new period for Salomon within the all-mountain ski and freeride classes by not solely that includes redesigned cores and new shapes, however by seemingly gaining a brand new id altogether. The gathering is catered to a extra progressive type of snowboarding and it will likely be attention-grabbing to discover that extra within the coming months earlier than our official gatherings are launched within the fall.
